PASADENA – In late August 2001, Patti Patton-Bader was writing checks to reserve her son’s dorm room at San Diego State University when he dropped the news.

“This man told me if I signed up for the Army I could go to Italy,” the 18-year-old told her, “so I did.”

Within two years, her son, Brandon Varn, was heading for the deserts of Iraq and Patton-Bader was glued to the news, feeling helpless.

“It’s a scary thing when something so much bigger than you has your son – when a war has your child, life changes forever,” she said.

The Pasadena resident sent Varn carton-loads of his favorite ravioli and bags of clean socks overseas to keep his spirits up.

And when he told her the rest of the guys in his unit could use some supplies too, she started sending a few more care packages each week.

Three years later, Varn is a success story. He’s home safe, serving as an Army recruiter and opening up about his wartime experiences.

And the extra care packages assembled in her living room have grown into Soldiers’ Angels – an almost 100,000-person volunteer organization serving as many soldiers, and growing constantly.

While relatively unknown in the San Gabriel Valley, word of mouth and the power of the Internet have resulted in an army of volunteers ready to mobilize around the globe.

The entire organization is Web-based. Soldiers’ Angels spin-off groups have spread to Canada, Great Britain, Germany and other European countries. Volunteer teams have spouted up throughout the Midwest and Eastern United States.

“When it’s a worthy cause, people just get behind it,” Patton-Bader’s husband and Brandon’s stepfather, Jeff Bader, said of the organization. “People are willing to help when they see you’re honest.”

Buzz has also grown in Iraq.

The most popular Soldiers’ Angels campaign matches volunteers with deployed soldiers looking for someone to write them once a week and send care packages each month.

Soldiers are signing themselves up for “adoption” at the rate of hundreds a week. Lately, the Web site has been receiving requests from commanders for their entire units.

“It’s amazing what we are seeing – thousands of names,” Soldiers’ Angels President Ann-Marie Smith said. “Right now we have more soldiers than angels.”

Pasadena resident and Vietnam veteran Michael Buirge found Soldiers’ Angels last year after the group attended a volunteer expo held at his office. He’s since adopted three soldiers.

Buirge said he lucked out. All of his soldiers have Internet access.

He’s even taken advantage of instant messaging.

“I’d be chatting on Google and thinking, `I can’t believe it, I’m talking live to Iraq,”‘ he said.

But his enthusiasm also comes with a warning. These young people are in a war, and when they aren’t fooling around on the Internet, they are facing grave danger.

Patton-Bader said one of the biggest jobs for an angel is providing unconditional love for soldiers who undoubtedly have complex feelings about the war and their role in it.

“Sometimes I have to tell them, I don’t have what you have to do to get home, just get home. That’s your only job,” she said. “We want them to come home with their sanity intact – as much as that is possible.”

While Patton-Bader has to protect against becoming emotionally overwhelmed, she must also be vigilant about preventing the site from becoming a political sounding board.

“It’s been really, really hard,” Patton-Bader said. Her policy has been to accept help and free publicity from any politician or group, but she refuses to endorse them on the Web site or link to any of their Web pages.

They, however, are more then welcome to link to her site in hopes of attracting more donations.

While “adoptions” don’t cost the organization much, fundraising is integral for its many other campaigns, including sending thousands of backpacks filled with everything from new clothes and, occasionally, specially configured laptops to military hospitals around the world for the wounded.

And then there are causes that just seem to pop up, like the time an army unit asked Soldiers’ Angels to help an Iraqi orphanage where children were living in freezing conditions without a pair of shoes.

Patton-Bader put the call out to major donors, media outlets and just about anyone else who would listen. The group ended up outfitting each child with warm clothing, sturdy shoes and toys.

“We needed to get it done, so we just did it,” she said, seemingly unimpressed with her own ability to orchestrate in weeks what take many people years to accomplish.

The Christmas plan for this year includes gift bags, a coffee mug, hot chocolate and cider mix, candy, a calling card and a pair of socks.

Sitting on his mother’s couch, Varn and a fellow recruiter who served in the first Gulf War said seemingly small gestures mean much more when you are at war.

“It gives you something to look forward to,” Varn said, adding that there’s often not much else to look toward. “Getting a package or a letter always means a lot to us.”

But it is the crates overflowing with letters from soldiers and volunteers that mean the most. Patton-Bader reads a letter from a volunteer who recently attended a soldier’s funeral with other angels, determined to keep a group of protesters from ruining the ceremony.

They stood for more than six hours, and never let the group near the mourning family.

She looks at letters from soldiers thanking her for providing a way to reach out to when they feel at their lowest.

The letters are her proof that Soldiers’ Angels is doing the job it was meant to do.

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